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| George Frederick Ainscow Garden of the Villa Cipressi Varenna, Lake Como 1991 oil on board Touchstones Rochdale, Lancashire |
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| Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld An Alley of Trees in a Park ca. 1810 oil on canvas Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Spencer Gore Harold Gilman's House at Letchworth, Hertfordshire 1912 oil on canvas New Walk Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester |
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| Paul Cézanne Avenue at Chantilly 1888 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
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| David Cox Garden Terrace at Haddon Hall 1849 oil on canvas Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Laura Sylvia Gosse Versailles ca. 1930-40 oil on canvas Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Henri-Joseph Harpignies The Painter's Garden at Saint Privé 1886 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
The Despot
The garden mould was damp and chill,
Winter had had his brutal will
Since over all the year's content
His devastating legions went.
Then Spring's bright banners came: there woke
Millions of little growing folk
Who thrilled to know the winter done,
Gave thanks, and strove towards the sun.
Not so the elect; reserved, and slow
To trust a stranger-sun and grow,
They hesitated, cowered and hid
Waiting to see what others did.
Yet even they, a little, grew,
Put out prim leaves to day and dew,
And lifted level formal heads
In their appointed garden beds.
The gardener came: he coldly loved
The flowers that lived as he approved,
That duly, decorously grew
As he, the despot, meant them to.
He saw the wildlings flower more brave
And bright than any cultured slave;
Yet, since he had not set them there,
He hated them for being fair.
So he uprooted, one by one
The free things that had loved the sun,
The happy, eager, fruitful seeds
That had not known that they were weeds.
– Edith Nesbit (1908)
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| Paul Maitland House seen through Trees before 1909 oil on canvas Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| John Martin Kensington Gardens 1815 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
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| Charles Mahoney Yellow Ox-Eye Daisies before 1968 oil on board Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Lucien Pissarro The Garden Gate, Epping 1894 oil on canvas Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Clare Roberts The Botanic Gardens, Oxford ca. 1979 oil on canvas, mounted on panel Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Thomas Edwin Mostyn The Sanctuary ca. 1910 oil on canvas Touchstones Rochdale, Lancashire |
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| Norman Stevens Castle Garden ca. 1970-80 oil on canvas Touchstones Rochdale, Lancashire |